Articles in Spanish can be confusing, even annoying. It makes sense because there are only two articles in English: “The” and “A”. Yet there are four ways of saying “the” in Spanish, and four ways of saying “a”. Why, when and how to use all these articles is simpler than you think, and important to learn when learning to speak Spanish.

Articles are words that define a noun as specific or unspecific. Consider the following examples:

After the long day, the cup of tea tasted particularly good.

By using the article “the”, we’ve shown that it was one specific day that was long and one specific cup of tea that tasted good. That’s why “the” is called a definite article.

After a long day, a cup of tea tastes particularly good.

By using the article a, we’ve created a general statement, implying that any cup of tea would taste good after any long day. That’s why a is called an indefinite article.

Gender in the Spanish language

That’s all beautiful. The thing is that in Spanish every single noun has a gender: feminine or masculine. “A chair” is feminine, but “a bench” is masculine. If you have studied some Spanish you are painfully aware of this.

Like nouns, articles in Spanish also have genders. But it doesn’t stop there, in addition to gender, all articles in Spanish also have a plural form. There is no plural for “the” in English, it stays the same whether we are talking about “the chair” or “the chairs.” But there is a plural form for “a”: “a chair,” “some chairs.”

THE chair

THE chair

A chair

SOME chairs

Articles in Spanish take on both the gender and the number of the noun. That’s why there are so many ways of saying “the” and “a” in Spanish. Let’s see them in action.

How to say THE in Spanish: The definite article (EL, LA)

In Spanish the definite article “the” must agree in gender with the noun:

MASCULINE

The

El

The bench

EL banco

FEMININE

The

La

The chair

LA silla

The definite article “the” must also agree with the noun in number:

MASCULINE PLURAL

The

Los

The benches

LOS bancos

FEMININE PLURAL

The

Las

The chairs

LAS sillas

Not too bad, right? But you might be wondering how to know when something is masculine or feminine… It isn’t so simple but it gets better with time and after a while you really start to get a feel for it.

How to say A in Spanish: The indefinite article (Un, Una)

Just like with definite articles, in Spanish the indefinite article “a” must also agree with the noun in both gender and number:

MASCULINE

A

Un

A bench

UN banco

FEMININE

The

Una

A chair

UNA silla

Note that “uno” only refers to the number 1, and it never replaces the indefinite article a. Whether we are talking about “a bench” or “one bench”, we use the same article: un banco.

What about the plural forms?

MASCULINE PLURAL

Some

Unos

Some benches

UNOS bancos

FEMININE PLURAL

Some

Unas

Some chairs

UNAS sillas

You can imagine how this gets confusing. And this is only the beginning, adjectives must agree with the nouns as well… it’s a whole world!! At Fluenz we take it step by step. We do not throw all the rules at our students straight away but rather start introducing new forms and concepts once the previous ones have been cemented.

We only work with singular nouns at first. Then, once you have those down, we introduce the plurals and so forth.

Your turn!

Let’s see if you can use the correct articles for the following nouns.

Try using all of the different articles: definite and indefinite, singular and plural.

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